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Barely Legal: the Nintendo 64 turned 18 this week.

K

Khalifa Jayy

Banned
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Happy birthday big guy. Share some of your favorite ads, color schemes, games, moments, etc.

I remember first seeing that it had 4 controller ports. It absolutely blew my mind. I used to play Diddy Kong Racing on it religiously. Still my favorite cart racer of all time due to the amazing level and world design, the hidden stuff, and the different vehicles. Unlocking TT was so gratifying.

How do you remember the 64? Other than the stupid movement to add 64 to a bunch of game names like Mario Kart 64 and whatnot lol.
 
Mario Party 3
Mario Kart 64
Pokemon Stadium 1/2
Super Smash Bros.

The essential 4 player multiplayer games of the N64.
 
The Nintendo 64 controller is the biproduct of a boomerang, and pitchfork and a Dalek having a wicked sick threesome.

That being said the N64 was my first 3D console. Had a lot of memories with that thing.
 
Pilotwings 64 is still one of the most chill, creative arcade flying games ever made. It's also fairly challenging, showed off the N64's audio and visuals quite nicely, and lays claim to the most nostalgic of all free-flight modes.

Coupled with Wave Race 64, you have two of the most unique extreme sports games one can play.
 
18 years. It might have been (IMO) the worst Nintendo console ever made, yet it still had its share of solid classics. Paper Mario, Super Mario 64, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Pilotwings, F-Zero X, 1080, and Dr Mario 64 all come to mind, but more importantly came the (IMO) most important 5th gen title they ever made:

http://youtu.be/-FoB3n1kxrY?t=54s

Mario Artist: Polygon Studio, may her legacy, influence, and sequels NEVER end! It COMPLETELY validates the existence of the console, lackluster as it may be.
 
God that controller is awkward to go back to. It's like it fell out of an alternate universe. I could look past it at the time because Mario and Zelda were great, but my God, what were they thinking with the whole three-pronged design.

And every game runs at like 20fps.

PS1 holds up better thank to all of its great 2D games, but that whole generation is kind of painful in retrospect. Developers took a few years to figure out how to make polygonal games work, consistently. Camera controls were a nuisance in virtually every polygonal game.

Also, that generation was odd because Nintendo had the Western-oriented console with a bunch of brown shooters on it.
 
I remember seeing the first shots of the console(when it was still Ultra 64) in Nintendo Power and having my mind blown.

sSTyX1r.jpg
 
The tail end of the old guard.

Mr. Yamauchi took Nintendo in some interesting directions in his twilight years at the company....Mr. Arakawa and Mr. Lincoln built up Nintendo of America as a unique publishing house with all sorts of wild ventures and partnerships with Western developers.

It was a crazy, experimental time for the company back in the turn of the millennium. What a magical time for the N64 to be released. :-)
 
Still hard to believe that Rare built Perfect Dark on that console. That game was packed with so much content and options. Jesus Christ. Like half the game wasn't even playable without the expansion pack lol.
 
Thinking about that console gives me a weird feeling. More so than the NES or SNES/Genesis. Times were so different back then with print magazines instead of online sites. At most back then all I'd get to see were like a 5 screenshots of a game before my parents would but it.
 
I'm kinda sad I never even got to try out the console. None of my friends had one when I was growing up nor did any of the stores have one on display, which was kinda odd.
 
It's been 18 years? Damn.

The N64 was my first home console I ever owned ( with the Gameboy Color being my first over-all ) and I loved that thing. It was the only console my parents ever played with me when I was younger and I've got so many good memories out of that thing. I still remember clearly the first time I played through a match of Smash 64 as Samus against 4 level 9 CPUs all at 99 lives and winning. Even some infamous stories I hold close, like the time my sister deleted my Mario 64 save file all because Mario was 'broken'. The day before the vulture in the desert level had stolen his hat and I had been unable to get it back but was planning on getting it the next day. I was pissed but I will probably remember that for the rest of my life, haha.

All those stories is why I collect games for it. I've got around 40+ and counting, upgraded from the gray to a Jungle Green, and just began hunting down the peripherals in general. It's by no means a perfect console or library but I love it none-the-less.
 
CaptainSlow said:
Exactly how I held it in my hands. Worst Nintendo controller ever. If I held it with the middle prong my hands and knuckles would constantly hit each other. Honestly what were they thinking.
Click to expand...
To me, it worked pretty well if you had big hands and long fingers. I never had a problem with the controller, even as a kid. And I held it exactly like that.
 
I feel so old. This was my first console ever and loved that it introduced me to my three favorite franchises: Smash, Mario Kart and Pokemon. So much good memories from my childhood with this console
 
PurpleEggRoll said:
Wow only 18 yrs? I feel so old. Happy birthday n64, thanks for changing gaming in every major way possible.
Click to expand...

You mean except for marketing, expansion into the young adult demographic, and the development of "cinematic" games more generally, and dual analog, and optical discs, and CD-quality audio, and voice acting, and multimedia features on consoles, and the popularization of console RPGs, and budget gaming on consoles?
 
Super Mario Bros 3 was six years old in the US when Super Mario 64 came out.

This is almost impossible for me to fathom, since, in my mind, I consider Mario 64 relatively recent (with gameplay concepts and mechanics still in many of today's modern games) and SMB3 to be very old. This is how big the leap introduced with Mario 64 was.
 
Atari= N64/PS1
NES= Xbox/PS2/GameCube
Snes= 360/PS3 in my mind.

The N64 had that same feeling I had when I was playing the Atari for the first time. The graphics were crude, but who the hell cared, there was nothing like it at the time.

Makes me excited to finally get the consumer version of the rift, I think that'll be the next Atari/N64 holy shit moment.
 
Best Mario Party games.
Best Rainbow Road in a Mario Kart.
So much time spent with Super Smash Bros.
Banjo Kazooie/Tooie were awesome.
Turok 2 multiplayer.

Also, I like the controller...but Mario Party games destroyed the stick. Clever scheme by Nintendo.
 
Phediuk said:
You mean except for marketing, expansion into the young adult demographic, and the development of "cinematic" games more generally, and dual analog, and optical discs, and CD-quality audio, and voice acting, and multimedia features on consoles, and the popularization of console RPGs, and budget gaming on consoles?
Click to expand...
No, all that too. Except for RPGs. That was mainly Pokemon and Final Fantasy in a sort of combined effort. That, and budget gaming. Unlike other companies titles, Nintendo games tend to maintain their value beyond their release year.
 
The N64's best games have been eclipsed on other consoles. When you look at all the great games on other systems that can be traced to N64 origins, very few N64 games hold up in comparison.

Goldeneye 007, TimeSplitters 2
Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Kazooie XBLA
Banjo Tooie, Banjo Tooie XBLA
Perfect Dark, Perfect Dark XBLA
LoZ: Ocarina of Time, LoZ: Ocarina of Time 3D
Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee
Mario Kart 64 (races only, battle is still great), Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart Wii
Diddy Kong Racing, Diddy Kong Racing DS (Maybe. Haven't played either of them very long.)
Star Fox 64, Star Fox 64 3D

What's left? I am no expert, but these are the few that come to mind:

F-Zero X
Super Mario 64 (dated in some parts. 100 coin stars? Yuck.) (DS version is a nice alternate version but not a substitute. Too much is changed for the worse.)
LoZ: Majora's Mask
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium 2
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (was never a huge Kirby fan but Kirby gamers love this one)
 
GameGuru59 said:
No, all that too. Except for RPGs. That was mainly Pokemon and Final Fantasy in a sort of combined effort. That, and budget gaming. Unlike other companies titles, Nintendo games tend to maintain their value beyond their release year.
Click to expand...

Congratulations, this is the most egregious historical revisionism I've ever seen on GAF.
 
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